The Art of Waking Up

These poems are about poverty, family, loss, the vast significance of the everyday, the wisdom of eating when you are hungry. But mostly about love. Here’s a poem: I AM A KNOWN BREAKER OF BROKEN THINGS: I am a known breaker of broken things. / I can guarantee the permanent dismantling / of anything even moderately salvageable. / While gluing the handle back on your / favorite mug? / I will undoubtedly manage to chip the rim. / Patching your jeans I’ll blow a seam / rendering them unwearable. // Listen. // Next time you’re on your hands and knees / digging through dust bunnies for those lost batteries. / You. Will. Regret. The day / I offered to fix the remote control / because I inevitably manage to crack / the plastic snap off the back, / that delicate tab meant to / hold everything together. // I’m not the best at keeping it together. // See, my dad was the guy who’d give you / a reason to cry if you couldn’t supply / a full alibi for every. Single. Tear. /Complaining about scraped knees or bee / stings earned a two-fold return in the currency / of pain, teaching a younger me / the most efficient means / to overcome one agony / is replacing it with another. / I don’t mean to be blunt / but the force of trauma was the only lesson / I ever learned from love. / I will be a kick in the ribs / when what you needed was someone / to kiss it better. // Darling, I can see the seams / where your delicate dreams are knitting themselves / back together. // So please. // Don’t offer me those parallel lines, / scar tissue rungs strung / across your upper thighs, / the ladder you climb to escape / each personal hell. // Don’t tell me the history of your body. / Describe the trajectory and delicacy / of stick-thin child limbs, / plaster walls elastically / absorbing the full weight of you / after mom had one-too-many gin nightmares. // You are porcelain / and these hands were tempered in concrete. / Your wings might be a bit bent (testament / to the turbulence they underwent) but / they are healing. // Don’t tempt me to fix you. / I am a known breaker of broken things.